This new budget smartphone from ZTE is actually the Blade D6 launched last year. And the phone which has now been launched in India as Blade V6, all its specifications and features are the same as the old Blade D6. This smartphone, which was launched at Rs 9,999, seems expensive today because it is one year old, but maybe Blade V6 can attract us with its features.
Design and design
The design of the phone attracts attention the first time you hold it in your hand. And we got the same reaction from whoever we handed the phone to for the first time. This phone is 6.8 mm thin and weighs only 122 grams. Apart from this, the grip of the phone is very good due to which it feels like an iPhone when held in the hand.
The phone is comfortable to hold and the buttons are easy to reach. The fit and finish of the buttons on the phone is not the best as the buttons wobble a bit and the power button also had a bit of a problem in our test unit. According to the company, the 5 inch HD IPS display has good brightness in daylight. There is no scratch protection provided in the display, so you will have to be extra careful during everyday use. The resolution is also only HD and not full HD. There are capacitive buttons at the bottom of the display which are equipped with blue light.
The Blade V6 has a metal frame and rear but does not feature a unibody design. The hybrid SIM tray is on the left and the phone supports 4G for Indian bands. But 4G support will be available only in the first SIM slot whereas only 2G is supported in the second SIM slot. You can expand the internal storage up to 64GB via microSD card if you use only one SIM.
A mono speaker is provided at the rear. This phone has a 13-megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED flash. Being an old model, fingerprint sensor is not provided in the phone as expected.
On purchasing the Blade V6, you will get a standard 5-watt charger and a data cable in the box. The quality of the accessories that come with it is very good and should last a long time.
Specifications and features
I wish ZTE had put some effort into updating the processor before launching this phone here. The Blade V6 has a basic quad-core MediaTek MT6735 processor. The phone has 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage. These specifications are fine as per Android Lollipop and we saw its effect in benchmarking test also. The phone got good figures in benchmarking tests. Talking about other specifications, the phone has Wi-Fi B/G/N, Bluetooth 4.0, USB OTG, GPS and FM radio.
Having an old chipset in a phone is not a big deal if the price of the phone is kept in mind. But software puts obstacles in the way. The Blade V6 runs on Android 5.0.2, which is two versions older than the latest version of Lollipop, which is also now two versions older than the latest Android. Moreover, things get worse when updates have not been released since November last year to fix the security flaws. This is especially disturbing after hearing about hacks and security related news on the Android platform.
The stock launcher offers a single-layer layout on the phone’s home screen which is quite confusing due to the poor choice of icons. The good thing is that you can make things much easier by switching from the stock launcher. For those who prefer the back button to the right of the home button, ZTE has provided the option to swap the function of the capacitive button.
Many third party apps come pre-installed in the phone. Some of these, like the two music players, you can’t even uninstall. Apart from this, with ElevShare you can send files and messages through ad-hoc network. Chatz is also a messaging service, Avery Stripe Live Wallpaper, Hubi Neese, Shazam, Google’s apps, and AVG antivirus come pre-installed.
Most of these apps, like music players, cannot be removed. These also include ZTE’s iShow app which plays the video of your choice when the phone is unlocked. Most of these apps are such that you will rarely use them but you will not get rid of them.
performance
The performance of Blade V6 is very fast and the phone works quickly. Apps launch quite fast and multi-tasking can be done without any hassle. The phone does not get hot while playing games. The call quality received in the phone is not very good and even with full volume, we had trouble hearing during the call and the microphone is also very weak.
Media playback is good in Blade V6 and the phone also plays high bit-rate Full HD videos well. The audio performance is also not bad and this is due to the presence of Archimedes Sound. Despite the mono speaker, the volume level is good, which makes the video watching experience great.
The 13-megapixel camera provided in the phone provides detailed macro photos in daylight but landscape shots are average. The detail level is also not great, especially in objects that are on the sides of the photo. Photos don’t look very good in low light, especially when there are only one or two lights, but apart from this, the camera doesn’t perform well when taking landscape photos of a street. There is also problem in focus and store speed with dim ambient light.
The front camera does a great job for selfies but only in good lighting. The camera app is similar to the Android app that we have been seeing in every budget smartphone for quite some time now. Apart from this, Face Beauty, Panorama, Live Photo and HDR and Gesture Shot are available. The camera app has filters and a long press on the shutter button activates burst mode.
With the 2200 mAh battery provided in the phone, we were able to use the phone for a whole day. In our video loop test, the battery lasted for 8 hours and 7 hours continuously, which is not bad.
our decision
It’s not really clear why ZTE has launched this model now, especially since an upgraded variant of the phone was already launched at Mobile World Congress this year. The Blade V6 is priced at Rs 9,999 and is currently available only at Hotshot retail outlets in Delhi.
Apart from the beautiful design and excellent battery life, there is no reason to buy this phone. Outdated software and security are two major flaws and are reason enough not to buy the phone.
Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime (Review), Asus ZenFone Max (2016) (Review) and Le 1S Eco smartphones come with better performance and features at a lower price.
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